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Slow Movement on the Rise!

The Slow Movement’s roots can be traced back to the original Slow Food movement, which began in the late 1980s in Bra, Italy when a group of young and passionate foodies and social and environmental activists protested the construction of a McDonald’s in their town. They joked, “If there exists a philosophy of fast food, why not promote the idea of slow food?”

In 1989, this vibrant and impassioned group created the manifesto for the international Slow Food movement. In their manifesto, Slow Food voiced a strong opposition against globalization, namely the negative, homogenizing cultural and societal forces and the destructive environmental impacts of large-scale, industrial monoculture farming practices.

Slow Food’s initial goal was (and still remains!) to defend local, regional traditions, gastronomic pleasure, and promote a simpler, slower pace of life. Since its conception, Slow Food has grown and now is present in xx countries around the world.

New vocal proponents of Slow have emerged. Geir Berthelsen created a think tank called The World Institute of Slowness and in 1999, articulated a vision for a whole Slow Planet. Carl Honoré‘s 2004 book, In Praise of Slowness, explored how the Slow philosophy could be impressed upon every field of human endeavor and in doing so, coined the phrase Slow Movement.

Comments

Thank you for your blog and your book. My husband (Vlad) and I moved to NYC 13 years ago and have lived on the slow lane, perhaps in response to New York’s crazy pace. We are just completing our nomadic 14+ months of leisurely traveling and writing during my sabbatical. I am a professor at Bronx Community College. My husband is a free-lance photographer and so for him too, this has been a sabbatical. I just found your book “New Slow City” and am almost two-thirds through it – I am at “autumn”. Very inspiring and so nice to know that other people do this too! About 16 years ago, we both read “Your Money or Your Life” and have tried to live by this philosophy ever since. We are so happy that it really works!

Thanks for your great comment, and glad to hear you are finding the ‘slow’ in New York!
Do keep in touch via this website. I’ll be posting my fall events here this coming week, and should be giving at least one talk in the spring in the NYC area. Warm regards- Bill